Over the past four years, the Biden-Harris administration has spared no effort to undermine America’s identity as a culturally Christian nation – an extension of a similar secularization crusade being waged by liberals throughout the West. But growing backlash to this left-wing movement could have a major influence at the ballot box this fall, just as prominent figures in other culturally Christian nations are also beginning to speak out in defense of cultural Christianity.
While religious liberty has always been and remains a core principle of the American legal system, the United States’s cultural identity is rooted in a Judeo-Christian tradition. Christian teachings and mores are the foundation of the Constitution. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Even as church attendance and religious belief has declined throughout the West, Christianity has remained as the vital bedrock of Western civilization. While many westerners are no longer practicing Christians, Christianity is nonetheless intertwined with their national or family identity. Many celebrate Christian holidays and participate in rituals, even if they do not have a deep commitment to religious doctrines.
Cultural Christians embrace the moral teachings of Christianity as societal norms, if not religious imperatives. Their identification with Christianity is often more about belonging to a group or tradition than personal faith.
Even non-Christians have emphasized the importance of cultural Christianity to the prosperity and security of Western civilization. During an interview earlier this year, Professor Richard Dawkins, an outspoken atheist, referred to himself as a “cultural Christian,” saying that he “feel[s] at home in the Christian ethos.”
Dawkins’s comments came in the context of news that Ramadan lights were hung on Oxford Street in England rather than Easter lights – something Dawkins said he was “slightly horrified” to hear. “If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time,” Dawkins added, appearing to shock the interviewer.
As Dawkins’s remarks reflect, the rapid proliferation of Islam throughout the West, particularly in Europe, fueled by mass migration has contributed to a crisis moment for cultural Christianity. Open hostility from liberal politicians toward practicing Christians and the Christian faith has made this crisis even more acute.
Dr. Bastien Raphael Voclain, a member of the Popular Republican Movement, the former Christian democratic political party in France, pointed out that Dawkins was merely reiterating a basic truth that generations of Christians and non-Christians alike throughout the West have understood. “Christian culture, which some call cultural Christianity, is a necessity in our troubled times,” he said.
“Why has Western culture not only survived but thrived?” he asks. It is because, as the late Pope John Paul II observed, of that crucial Christian ethos, which upholds the belief that “the greatness of man is great in that he knows he is miserable.” Islam fails to recognize this, Voclain said, and does not have the Christian belief that all should “treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”
Giampaolo Fabbro, a Catholic retired professor of political science and ethics who joined the newly formed Christian Democracy party in post-war Italy, added in an interview with me that John Paul II further explained that cultural Christianity is “a result of the penetration of the culture of Western societies by the Bible.”
“I saw a ruined society,” Professor Fabbro said, referring to Italy after World War II. “At that time, we began to restore the influence of cultural Christianity; it united our country.” Fabbro is convinced restoring cultural Christianity is also the cure for today’s America. “You need to strengthen it; it will bring all Americans closer together,” he said. “America grew from Christian roots and radiates this culture.”
But the future of cultural Christianity in the United States will ultimately be decided by the voters. Both candidates in this November’s presidential contest have offered distinct, diametrically opposed visions for what the cultural identity of America should be.
Former President Donald Trump’s vision, grounded in a respect and reverence for America’s Christian roots, was perhaps best outlined in the final report of the 1776 Commission, a group that Trump established to study and preserve America’s founding heritage. The report made the case that the American Revolution “might not” have occurred if “moral ideas had not spread through the pulpits, sermons, and publications of Christian instructors.” The report’s findings, rooted in solid historical fact, point to the vital importance of cultural Christianity to modern American society.
Professor Fabbro described the 1776 Report as a “brilliant synopsis of the sources of American values and political philosophy,” which he said is “badly needed in this era of trials.”
In a telling move, President Joe Biden disbanded the 1776 Commission as one of his first acts after taking office – symbolically repudiating the central importance placed on cultural Christianity by his predecessor.
Since then, Biden, with Harris as his chief lieutenant, has sought to erode and undermine the influence of Christianity in public life while simultaneously using the power of the federal government to target individual Christians.
Despite professing to be a devout Catholic, Biden has erased the true meaning of Easter and even refused to mention the name of Jesus Christ in one Christmas message. Biden’s FBI has ignored an alarming rise in hate crimes against Christians while targeting people of faith like Mark Houck with unjust FBI raids and labeling traditionalist Catholics potential “violent extremists.”
The point of all of this appears to be to intimidate and silence the practicing Christians who are the sustaining life force of cultural Christianity, undermining America’s Christian identity in the process. Harris, while professing a Baptist faith, has mirrored Biden’s hostility toward Christians and cultural Christianity.
When Americans head to the ballot box this fall, they may well be deciding on whether the United States will remain a culturally Christian nation or continue its descent into radical left-wing secularism. The consequences of that choice for the future of the country could be drastic.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
